“I spent an entire weekend in their hut,” I said. “I showed the mother some strengthening exercises she could do with her daughter and taught the mother tongue exercises she could use to show her daughter how to form correct sounds.”
“They lived in a hut? Like with mud?” Nathaniel asked.
“Oh yes. All of them do,” I said.
“Did she walk?” Clara asked.
“She did when I left. We were playing soccer, just like Nathaniel did tonight, before I left. She was running around with strong legs and kicking balls farther than any boy in her area could,” I said with a smile.
“She was lucky to have you,” Joshua said.
I drew in a deep breath as I hugged their necks. They reminded me so much of the kids I had taken care of back in Africa. I tucked Nathaniel in before Carter took Joshua and Clara, and I went downstairs to throw some laundry into the washer.
Along with Nathaniel’s jersey.
That thing stunk.
“Sounds like you really enjoyed your time in Africa,” Carter said.
I nodded as I poured some detergent in and started the washer.
“I did,” I said.
“Do you miss it?” he asked.
“More than I care to admit to, despite some things that happened.”
“What things?” he asked.
I turned my body to face him as I leaned against the wall.
“Why didn’t you let me tell the Lancasters I was the children’s nanny?” I asked.
“Didn’t seem important,” Carter said.
“But you kept interrupting me,” I said.
“To try and keep the conversation moving. People like the Lancasters will stand around and talk for hours if you let them. The kids would’ve been snoring in the sand if I didn’t move things along.”
“So you didn’t like them?” I asked.
“Oh, I thought they were wonderful people. But we needed to get the kids back.”
I nodded my head, but I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth. I knew there was something still brewing between us.
I could see it in his eyes.
“Do you want a glass of wine before you go? Or do you need to get home?” Carter asked.
“I could stay for one,” I said.
I walked over to the couch as Carter opened up a bottle. I was hoping he would stay away from the topic of Africa. I didn’t want to think about it. Not about the parts he would poke at, anyway. He sat beside me, his body a little too close for ‘platonic’ as he handed me a glass of wine.
“My wife wanted to go to Africa,” Carter said.
I whipped my head over to him as I studied the profile of his face. He had never willingly brought her up before.
Why was he doing it now?
“Which part?” I asked.
“She wanted to go on one of those African safaris,” he said.
“I hear they’re fun,” I said.
“I kept putting it off. Telling her we would go soon. Over spring break. Next summer. Next year.”
I watched him wrap his lips around the rim of his glass as his eyes became unfocused.
“What happened to her, Carter?”
His eyes closed for a moment as he took a long pull of his wine.
“When my wife got pregnant with Clara, things didn’t quite pan out the way we wanted. She was strong with Nathaniel and Joshua, but for some reason Clara drained all of her energy.”
“That sometimes happens,” I said.
“It got to a point where she was sleeping thirteen, fourteen hours a day. I had to hire someone to come in and help me with the kids while she laid in bed and tried her best to grow Clara.”
“What was going on?” I asked.
“She had a tumor,” he said. “In her uterus. It was growing alongside Clara and robbing her of everything. Clara was fine. Strong. Stable. But between the growing tumor and Clara’s nutritional needs, it was literally killing my wife.”
“Oh my God,” I said breathlessly.
“The doctors wanted to take Clara early and put her in a NICU so they could operate on the tumor, but she wasn’t having it. She was combative, and determined to carry Clara for as long as she could.”
I reached over and took Carter’s hand as he threw back the rest of his wine.
“She got to eight months before the tumor forced her into labor. Clara was delivered by c-section and her entire uterus was removed to get rid of the tumor. But by then, it had metastasized. Spread to her lungs and her liver. We did chemotherapy and radiation and tried to get ahead of it, but… we couldn't.”
I squeezed his hand as tears lined the edges of my eyes.
“The tumors ravaged her and took her from us about a month before Clara turned one.”
“I’m so sorry, Carter,” I said breathlessly.
“I tell you this because… because what made my wife so special wasn’t the fact that she was my wife. It was the light she brought into this house. The joy she filled it with. The smile she put on our children’s faces. It doesn’t matter the role you play. What matters is how you affect this house. Whether you’re a neighbor or a nanny or something else entirely, you fill this house with a light that hasn’t been here since her.”
Carter brought my hand to his lips to kiss as I took a long pull of my wine.
“I didn’t care to correct that family because it didn’t matter. What they saw was a light in my children’s eyes that hasn’t been there for over two years. Who cares if you’re the nanny?” he asked.
I nodded my head as I drained the rest of my wine from my cup.
“But now, I’m going to ask you a question. And I want you to answer me honestly,” he said.
I braced myself for whatever was coming as I nodded my head.
“You haven't been okay lately. You’ve been coming in tired. Exhausted, even. If you’re sick, you know you can take time off, right?” Carter asked.
“I’m not sick,” I said.
“Then what’s been going on?” he asked.
“It’s nothing. I’ve got it under control.”
“I don’t think you do. That was a very strong coffee you came over with this afternoon,” he said.
“Carter, please-”
“Natasha, as your employer, I’m worried about you. This scenario would be no different if we were working at my company.”
“Would you be holding my hand at your company?” I asked.
He sighed as he released me, but I found him wanting to come back.
I found my skin aching for his touch.
“What’s going on?” Carter asked.
“My time in Africa, it wasn’t always…”
Shit. Was I really going to do this with him?
“Good?” he asked.
“Safe,” I said. “My time in Africa wasn’t always safe. Bria is… a war-torn area. There are so many guns and so many threats and so many children ripped from their families and forced to fight in order to save their own lives.”
I felt Carter’s fingers tuck a rogue strand of hair behind my ear.
“I have nightmares sometimes,” I said.
“Of what?” he asked.
“Of the children I used to treat that died in war-torn crossfires,” I said.
“What?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “It’s not roses and pies over there, Carter. Those kids are constantly running for their lives. Hiding underneath their beds at two in the morning because of gunfire whipping by the building they’re sleeping in. And sometimes, we were ambushed. The rogue armies made of enslaved African children wanted to run us out sometimes, so they would come running over the hill and simply start shooting. Kids, not much older than yours, with automatic weapons just spraying wherever they could.”
I felt my body shaking as Carter scooted closer to me.
“Natasha, I had no idea,” he said.
“No one does,” I said. “I watched kids I taught how to talk bleeding in the middle of the dirt roads. Kids I had
just taught how to walk running for their lives. Crying for their mothers and running into our tents trying to outrun their own friends who were killing them just to try and save themselves.”
Carter’s arm slipped around my waist and pulled me into his lap.
“I’m so sorry, Natasha,” he said with a whisper.
“They were just children,” I said breathlessly. “Just innocent children.”
My forehead fell against his as my tears dripped onto his skin. He was nuzzling his nose against me. His hands were rubbing my back. My legs straddled him and my hands gripped his shirt as my trembling body tried to ground itself. My lip was shaking and tears were leaking from my eyes.
I couldn't control myself.
I didn’t know how to stop it this time.
Without another word spoken, Carter covered his lips with mine. Pulling me deeper into him to try and calm my crying. Our lips moved together as my body began to heat. I sniffled and I hiccupped with my sobs as his tongue tried to comfort me.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Natasha.”
“And I’m sorry too,” I said. “I’m so sorry for what you had to go through.”
His hands slid up my shirt and I welcomed his touch. I sighed into his skin, feeling my face dip into the crook of his neck. He worked my pants down my legs and I kicked them off, trying to pull his cock from beneath his pants. Our movements were soft and languid. Moving towards a comforting motion I knew would settle the both of us.
A motion we both needed in that moment of vulnerability.
His rock-hard cock was held in his hands as I guided myself onto it. Our foreheads were connected as he sheathed himself with me, and I set a slow pace. Rocking against him, stroking his cock with my pussy as I tried to calm him down. He kissed my tear trails away and I massaged his shoulders. He kissed down my neck, following their taste with his tongue as he rid me of my sadness.
My ran my hands through his thick hair, reveling in the feel of him.
I had missed him.
I had missed this.
And suddenly, I wasn’t crying any longer.
His hands massaged my ass. I pulled his shirt over his head before I rid myself of mine, too. My chest pressed into his and I could feel his comforting strength. I could feel the horrors of Africa slowly fading into the background as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
Our lips connected and our tongues collided as I rocked against his lap.
Steadily.
Deeply.
Feeling his cock grow against my walls.
I breathed in his air and he stroked his fingers through my hair. Our eyes connected and not once did they waver. I looked into his beautiful green eyes and lost myself in their warmth. In the comfort they had always provided me as shivers ran up my spine.
The rhythm was steady and my body relaxed. The aches and pains I had been struggling with melted away against his body. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face into his neck, kissing his pulse point and allowing my teeth to taste his shoulder.
I came in his lap. A soft, sensual moment that curled my toes and made me moan into his neck. There was no sweat and no desperation. There was no grunting and no groaning. Only two people who needed comfort they couldn’t provide for themselves.
I sat in his lap, feeling his cock dwindling as our intermingled juices flowed from between my thighs.
“You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever come across,” Carter said.
And I closed my eyes, allowing his words to warm my body as he wrapped a blanket around us both.
Thirteen
Carter
“Come get me, Miss Nattie!” Clara said.
“I’m gonna get you!” Natasha said.
“Over here! Over here!” Joshua said.
“I’m gonna get all of you!”
I watched from the porch as Natasha ran around with the kids outside. It was a bright Sunday afternoon and the drink in my hand was cooling my body. The kids were sweating up a storm and Natasha’s shirt was beginning to soak with sweat. But she didn’t care. None of them cared. They had been running around for over an hour, kicking around a ball and transitioning into a fast-paced game of freeze tag.
It had been like this every weekend for six months.
Nathaniel’s soccer games were on Saturdays and family days were on Sundays. It started with Clara wondering why Natasha never came to family days, and I told her it was because Natasha wasn’t technically a part of our family.
But the boys voiced what I had been feeling for months.
“Yes she is. We love her.”
“She cooks and cleans and takes us to school.”
“She’s here all the time.”
“And you like having her around.”
“She comes to my games.”
“She makes Clara all those tutus.”
“And she lets us eat candy when you’re not looking.”
Natasha was just as much a part of this family as any of us were. So an open-ended invitation was given for her to spend Sundays with us if she wanted.
And she had been at our house every Sunday since.
Keeping things platonic had been hard after our encounter on the couch. I saw her in a completely different light after knowing what she had witnessed in Africa. The heart she had for educating and protecting children and how she had shouldered that burden on her own for so long. I felt as if I was looking at a kindred spirit. Someone who understood the pain I was going through with the loss of my wife.
Just like her pain from Africa would never fully dissipate, the pain of losing my wife would never fully go away.
She understood that. But more than that, I felt I could talk to her about it. My wife’s birthday had come and gone, and she had helped me through the worst of it. I came home late from work, determined to work the memory of her away. But when I walked into the house, there was a small cake sitting on the table. A cake with one of my wife and I’s wedding photos embossed onto the top.
We sat there and drank my wife’s favorite kind of wine, ate the cake, and Natasha listened as I told her story after story about her. How we met. When I first told her I loved her. Our wedding day. Our wedding night. Our honeymoon. Having the boys. The silly fights we had our first year of marriage.
All of it.
Natasha sat and listened to all of it.
And little by little, she opened up to me as well. She would tell me about the kids she taught over in Africa and how they had given her presents before she had left. How she constantly sent emails to try and check up on them even though they weren’t her responsibility any longer. Hell, there were a few times where she had called me in the middle of the night. Crying after a nightmare and wanting me to talk with her.
She was opening up to me, and the more she did the more I cherished her.
I thought keeping things platonic was what was best for the kids. But I didn’t want platonic any longer. I didn’t want things to be so distant between us. I wanted to follow my heart for once instead of my rational mind. I wanted the freedom to wrap my arms around her and kiss her after coming home from work.
I wanted that with Natasha.
I wanted her to be more than ‘just the nanny’.
“Dad! Watch!” Joshua said.
“I’m watching, kiddo.”
My son climbed onto Natasha’s shoulders and the two of them started dancing. Joshua was waving his arms around and Natasha was dancing her feet as fast as with could. Clara was clapping and cheering them on and Nathaniel was shouting that he wanted to go next. A chuckle fell from my lips as I sipped my drink, watching the sheer joy on my children’s faces.
She was perfect for us.
All of us.
How would I bridge that gap, though? I couldn’t simply ask her to be my girlfriend. I had to make this a smooth transition for everyone. Just because the kids liked her didn’t mean they would take to us being romantic around one another in front of them. They were still youn
g enough to be confused by something like that, and I didn’t want them to feel that way.
Like I was trying to replace their mother.
The best way to usher this part of our relationship in was to ask her to move in. She was here enough anyway. Her apartment was practically a waste of money. She slept there, and that was about it. She was with us the rest of the time. Asking her to be a live-in nanny would help move our relationship forward. It would help her to understand and see that she really did belong here.
But I had to make sure she understood I wasn’t trying to take her independence away. She would get a key to the house, so she could come and go as she pleased. She would work the same hours and would still have weekends off. Paid vacation, her salary… nothing would fall to the wayside with her moving in.
It was imperative to me that she not feel jailed in my home.
And if things went well with the conversation, then eventually I was willing to hire another nanny. Someone else to come in and help take care of the kids so we could be together as a real family. That would take time, of course. I couldn't throw all of that on her at once. But if she took my offer to move-in and things continued to go well, then that was my next step.
To tell her I wanted to be with her and offer anything I could provide so we could be a family together. Take vacations together. Enjoy one another’s company late at night after the kids had gone to bed.
Or on the weekends when my mother took them.
I wanted to take her out to a formal dinner to discuss this. That was what people did when discussing potential job moves. I didn’t have an office to call her into, but I could take her out on a ‘strictly business’ dinner. I could get her out of the house and into a more intimate scenario where we could talk moving her up the chain, so to speak.
I could gauge her reaction from there to figure out if I should announce my intentions or not.
A blast of cold water ripped me from my trance. My crystal glass went tumbling to the concrete, shattering into a million pieces. I heard one of my kids gasp as I looked up, and I saw Natasha holding the hose out in front of her. They were soaked from head to toe and watching with puckered lips.
Waiting to see what I would do.
“Uh oh,” Clara said.
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